Hezbollah members carry mock rockets next to a poster of the group's leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah [FIle]. (photo credit:REUTERS)
The Home Front Command will hold a national war drill from Sunday until Wednesday, which will include a nation-wide air raid siren on Tuesday evening at 7:05 p.m. The goal of the drill is to train civilians in how to quickly enter safe zones in homes and workplace, in the event of a mass rocket attack on Israel.
According to recent assessments within the Home Front Command, in any multi-front conflict, some 95% of all enemy rockets will be light-weight, short-range projectiles that have ranges that do no surpass 40 a kilometer range, and one percent of all incoming threats would score direct hits on buildings. Mass rocket attacks are expected to sew mass disruption and potential casualties in the hundreds in a war involving multiple front, and the Home Front Command has been working with emergency services, government ministries, and local authorities to prepare for such a scenario. The preparations are not an indication in any way of an assessment that a conflict is imminent, but rather, they form standard Home Front Command work during routine times. Keeping basic services running under fire are a central aspect of the Home Front Command's goals. Israel's enemies collectively possess some 230,000 projectiles, more than half of which are in Hezbollah possession in Lebanon. In any full-scale conflict, Hezbollah could fire 1,500 rockets per day, and target central Israel with dozens of long-range rockets per day. The big majority of those would fall in open areas, according to assessments. The Home Front Command is factoring into its preparations the fact that Hezbollah is seeking to obtain a growing number of precision-guided rockets. Cross-border infiltrations by Hezbollah and Hamas in any future conflict would pose significant challenge to the home front, according to plans. The Home Front Command has recently increased the number of areas within the country that will receive rocket alerts, from 265 to 3000, greatly increasing the accuracy of the warning. In recent weeks, the Home Front Command held a drill alongside a General Staff exercise, in which it practiced calling up reservist search and rescue personnel to mock destruction zones. In the event of conflict with Hezbollah, of the 750,000 Israelis who may vacate their homes from northern regions, the state will be able to absorb some 95,000 of them in hotels and kibbutz homes. Regarding the chemical threat, assessments in the Home Front Command are that the strategic threat from chemical weapons has decreased greatly since the Assad regime disbanded its chemical weapons program, but the tactical, pinpoint threat of chemical weapons by ISIS on the border has appeared as a future possibility. As a result, the Home Front Command continues to maintain gas mask production lines, enabling production of protection kits at a moment's notice if needed.
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